Four seasons,

opened property in Anguilla and an upcoming project in Los Cabos, Mexico. Airbnb also has the potential to influence pricing across the board.

“Ours is a business of supply and demand, so anything that introduces additional supply tends to put pressure on rates,” Mr. Smith said.

The Four Seasons CEO also foresees Airbnb becoming a bigger player in providing services as opposed to just accommodations.

MEANINGFUL FORCE

“Will they match us head to head in terms of service quality? Probably not,” Mr. Smith said. “That’s pretty hard for people to do, but I wouldn’t underestimate their ability to get pretty close. I think that they will be a meaningful force that we have to reckon with.”

One looming question is whether Airbnb ultimately positions itself “to control hotel inventory that they can then distribute,” Mr. Smith said.

“They are a distributor of inventory, however you want to describe it. Whether it’s in someone’s home or it’s within a hotel it’s all the same in many respects,” Mr. Smith said. “I don’t underestimate at all the impact they’ll continue to have on the marketplace, whether it’s at the more mid-market or the higher end of the market.”

If Airbnb goes public and begins to feel more pressure to boost growth, the easiest way is to allow regular accommodations on its system, according to Freitag.

“The scary scenario for the hotel industry is for the millennial user who is used to using the Airbnb app to book their accommodations to not have to leave that walled garden and suddenly have the full travel experience,” Freitag said in an interview.

Meanwhile, Smith said he can’t point to any business the company is losing because of Airbnb and that he is fully confident in Four Seasons’ outlook.

“There’s ample opportunity for us to grow in a meaningful way, but it’s not growth at any cost,” he said. — Bloomberg